Hipparchia is a genus of butterflies in the Nymphalidae family, so large that it includes nearly six thousand species worldwide. The name was given in 1807 by the Danish zoologist Johan Christian ...

If anything can halt the spread of the ‘ism’ that robs us of hope, trust, and agency, it’s the philosophy that is the rhetorical equivalent of a dog’s bark. The defining “ism” of our age is neither ...

Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode Navigating uncertainty. During uncertain times, many of us are drawn to cynicism, seeing humanity as inherently selfish, greedy and untrustworthy. In his latest ...

Skepticism is about questioning rather than automatically believing what you are presented such as that post on social media or on some random website. However, unlike cynicism, it doesn't necessarily ...

Diogenes of Sinope, a beggar who lived on the streets of Athens in the fourth century B.C.E., has been hailed as the progenitor of performance art, an inspiration for the Occupy movement, and, by the ...

Cynicism is a belief that humans are self-interested and immoral. Cynicism was once seen as radical, now is largely viewed as corrosive. Cynicism in large doses is unhealthy, but in some forms may be ...

Diogenes and Antithenes, two Cynics. Image via Wikimedia Commons. Journalists are supposed to be “skeptical,” but not “cynical.” Both effectively mean to be questioning of facts or motives. But one ...

Diogenes the Cynic (c. 412–323 BCE) was a contemporary of Plato, who once called him "a Socrates gone mad." After being exiled from his native Sinope for having defaced its coinage, Diogenes moved to ...